Let's recycle more, burn less

I'm looking at a DEP report showing that Massachusetts incinerators burn garbage from New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont as well as Massachusetts.

Incinerators need a constant supply of garbage to keep the fires going day and night. They can and do accept waste from anywhere in the region. If we allow more incinerators to be built in the commonwealth, more waste will come into the state to supply the new burners. Do we want to be a garbage magnet for the region's waste?

Germany made the mistake of building too many incinerators and now takes waste from other countries to feed them. European countries have realized too late that incineration competes with recycling for paper, cardboard, plastic and other resources in the trash.

Even the most modern incinerators capture only one-fifth of the energy in garbage. Recycling saves three to five times more energy, provides feedstock for new products and generates new businesses and jobs in reuse, remanufacture, recycling and composting. Instead of sending jobs up in smoke, let's keep the moratorium on new incinerators and focus on recycling and clean sources of energy.